Library Boy

Legal research news from an Ottawa law librarian

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Happy 15th Birthday World Wide Web!

On 30 April 1993, the European nuclear research lab CERN put the web in the public domain, meaning that the protocols of the World Wide Web would be non-proprietary and could be used by anyone free of charge.

Last November, former Ontario Associate Chief Justice Coulter Osborne handed in his preliminary report on how to make the province’s civil justice system fairer and more accessible.Bentley told The Laywyer's Weekly he is working on some of Osborne's recommendations, such as the suggestion to "increase the Small Claims Court’s monetary jurisdiction from $10,000 to $15,000, with a further increase to $25,000 within two years...", and limiting discovery.

He also explained his eagerness to reform the overburdened criminal justice system of the province.

However, the president of the Ontario Bar Association, Greg Goulin, is quoted as saying that the government has not been talking of the one thing both the civil and criminal justice systems badly need: money.

Earlier Library Boy posts about justice reforms include:

Review of Ontario Civil Justice System (July 19, 2006): "The Ontario government announced a few weeks ago it is looking into ways to reform the civil justice system of the province to make it more accessible and affordable. Former Associate Chief Justice of Ontario Coulter Osborne has been asked to study a range of issues, including the growing number of unrepresented litigants as well as ways to decrease delays and costs."

Canadian Civil Justice Reform Database (August 11, 2007): "The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice at the University of Alberta has created what it calls a knowledgebase of civil justice reforms in Canada: 'The Inventory contains descriptions of reform initiatives from across the country, each described according to a standard format that includes information on the purpose, development, implementation, and evaluation of the reform'."

Ontario Civil Justice Reform Project Report Published (November 24, 2007): "Mr. Osborne carried out province-wide consultations, researched civil justice studies and reforms in other jurisdictions, and reviewed over 60 written submissions from legal associations, lawyers, members of the judiciary and the public. The summary report contains 81 recommendations touching on 18 areas of procedural and substantive law, including unrepresented litigants, small claims, trial management, appeals, technology, courtroom civility and proportionality."

Ontario Launches Review of Complex Criminal Cases (Febrruary 25, 2008): "Patrick LeSage, former chief justice of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, and Michael Code, a University of Toronto law professor, have been assigned by the Ontario government to lead a review of large and complex criminal case procedures."

Government May Consider Radical Reforms To Fix Broken Criminal Trial System (April 8, 2008): "At a recent University of Ottawa conference, University of Toronto law professor Michael Code warned that 'unprofessional conduct' by defence and Crown attorneys in large criminal cases has governments contemplating far-reaching reforms to make the trial process more efficient (...) some of the changes being debated behind the scenes include: '(...) expanding the power of judges to vigorously manage the seemingly endless pretrial motions; restricting the timing, procedure and form of disclosure; expanding legal aid officials’ ability to oversee and restrain the legal aid budgets of long criminal trials, and restructuring the legal aid tariff to economically reward brevity and efficiency and deter inefficiency; and adding jury alternates to ensure that long, arduous trials don’t end in mistrials because jury members have dropped out'."

The podcast participants "explore DNA testing, civil liberties, the question of child abuse vs. religion, a sect’s legal rights and the fate of the children."

The legal controversy over polygamy has also been brewing here in Canada:

Polygamy in Canada - Can It Be Banned? (CBC News In Depth): "So in Canada, having more than one spouse can get you in trouble, right? Well, not on the face of it. There hasn't been a prosecution for polygamy in Canada for more than 60 years. Nor are statistics kept on how many Canadians live in polygamous marriages, a broad category that covers both men and women with multiple spouses (...) Yet the situation among members of the breakaway Mormon sect in Bountiful, B.C., is what concerns legal scholars and authorities most at the moment. There are those who say governments need to act, to lay charges against men in Bountiful who have openly engaged in polygamy. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in that B.C. town has strong ties to the polygamous sect in Eldorado, Texas, where hundreds of children are alleged to have been abused and women as young as 14 alleged to be married to much older men. "

Legal Background to the Controversy on Polygamy in Canada (Library Boy post, August 3, 2007): "There have recently been a number of studies on the legal aspects of the polygamy debate in Canada. In 2005 Status of Women Canada, a government agency that promotes gender equality, commissioned four research reports on the topic of polygamy..."

Update on Polygamy Controversy (Library Boy post, August 24, 2008): "The Osgoode Hall Law School blog The Court has just published a good summary of the issues for Canada: 'A Polygamy Primer'."

United Nations Creates Online Audiovisual Library of International Law

"This new on-line version of the Audiovisual Library of International Law is designed as a teaching and research tool in international law and consists of three main components: (i) historic archives containing material relating to select historical developments in the field of international law within the framework or under the auspices of the United Nations; (ii) a permanent collection of scholarly lectures by internationally recognized experts in international law; and (iii) a research library containing links to primary and secondary sources of international law. "

The initiative is still very much a pilot project. The site mentions that the launch of the online AV Library will be in October 2008.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Newest Blawg Review Issue on Labour and Employment Law

The most recent Blawg Review (a regular compendium of law-related material in the blogosphere) was put together by labour and employment lawyer Michael Fitzgibbon, a partner in the Toronto office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (where I worked between 2003 and 2005).

In his presentation, Fitzgibbon writes:

"That's really the 'theme' of this review. I want to bring to your attention some of the labour and employment blawgs and other blawgs that periodically write about labour and employment issues, while, at the same time, offering a somewhat Canadian flavour..."

The Commission's official work of hearing testimony from former students and surviving school staff is to start in June and last 5 years. Its job will be to establish an official historical record of what was done to Native children in the residential school system.

The Commission is part of the negotiated Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement reached between legal counsel for former students, legal counsel for the Churches, the Assembly of First Nations, other Aboriginal organizations and the Government of Canada.

The Canadian government has already paid out more than $1 billion to people who could prove they attended the once-mandatory schools where Native youngsters were sent to be forcibly 'Christianized'.

In recent years, many former students have testified about extensive physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of church officials from various denominations who ran the schools on behalf of the federal government.

Background material on the legacy of residential schools:

Where Are The Children (Legacy of Hope Foundation in partnership with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, Library Archives Canada, and Canadian Heritage’s On-line Partnership Program): " The website makes accessible photographs and documents related to residential schools, which will inspire a lasting legacy of awareness, healing, and reconciliation. The website allows the many Survivors of residential schools access to historical photographs and documents.

Native Residential Schools in Canada: A Selective Bibliography (Library and Archives Canada):"The type of materials listed in this bibliography include books, scholarly articles, school histories, personal accounts, theses, videos, and Internet resources. Please note that we would also like to acknowledge the incredible amount of coverage on the topic of residential schools by Native newspapers and periodicals, many of which are available at the National Library and some of which are listed herein.The scope of the bibliography, particularly more recent publications, suggests the vast impact that residential schools have had on the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Themes of the bibliography range from the injustices of abuses and enforced hardship to reconciliation and restitution."

Residential Schools (Aboriginal Canada Portal): this section of the portal offers a selection of high quality web links about the residential schools issue. The portal is a partnership between Government departments and the Aboriginal community.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Proposed Breach Notification Law Falls Short; U.S. Way Ahead of Canada

Today's issue of The Ottawa Citizen reports that proposed Canadian legislation about when customers must be notified of the loss of personal information by firms and institutions will allow the data holders a wide margin of discretion.

" 'In the event of a data breach where an organization determines there is a high risk of significant harm to individuals resulting from the breach, the organization is required to notify affected individuals as soon as is reasonably possible after detection of a breach,' the proposal states."

"The document confirms there will no financial penalties if companies break the rules. Comments from invited participants are due Friday (...)"

"Consumer groups say the behind-the-scenes talks, dominated by representatives from the banking, telecommunications, and retail sectors, 'have gone off the rails'."

" 'You could defend yourself, 'I never disclosed the information because we determined ourselves that there was not a high risk of significant harm. It was just a moderate risk of significant harm,' said John Lawford, staff lawyer at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre."

Last May, the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics completed the statutory review of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Committee did not recommend a mandatory breach notification law. Rather, it supported "requiring organizations to notify the Privacy Commissioner of certain defined security breaches, so that her office has an opportunity to assist in the determination of whether affected individuals should be notified, and if so, in what manner. This second stage of the process would be discretionary, in that the Privacy Commissioner would determine on a case by case basis whether or not to recommend notification." [see Recommendations 23-25]

Last fall, Industry Canada announced that it was seeking public input on a number of specific potential amendments to PIPEDA, including what to do about data security breaches. The draft proposal is a result of those consultations.

As a comparison, the legal requirements south of the border impose much more onerous obligations on companies and institutions.

Law and Politics Book Review Special Issue on Legal Fiction

You may want to add some of the novels on this list to your summer reading.

The Law and Politics Book Review has published a special issue devoted to legal fiction. The issue includes 22 reviews of American, British, and European novels from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, ranging from Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang to Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, with a little dose of Albert Camus thrown into the mix.

The Law and Politics Book Review is sponsored by the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.

New Issue of AALL Research Instruction and Patron Services Newsletter

Webbed Features: RIPS Repartee Webinar Series Begins (pp.2-3): "On November 15th the RIPS-SIS presented its first webinar titled 'Technical Issues & Practical Matters: A Law Librarian Q & A on Legal Technology.' (...) Ms. Reach [Catherine Sanders Reach,director of the American Bar Association’s Legal TechnologyResource Center] provided her audience with an update on recent developments in technology related to legal research and practice...: Trends in technology usage in law firms; Social networks and their impact on the legal profession; Web-based presentation software; Advances in courtroom video, and; Web 2.0 initiatives"

Creating Multimedia Research and Software Tutorials with Screencasting Software (pp. 4-5): "Although the HTML tutorials remained popular with our legal writing faculty even in early 2007, Georgetown’s reference librarians had by that time concluded that the old tutorials were too 'low-tech' and too text-driven to appeal to students who have grown up using multimedia learning and entertainment tools. During the spring and summer of 2007, we therefore set out to create new tutorials that incorporate a lot more graphics, scored review questions, interactive demonstrations of online research tools, and even a few animations and sound effects."

Australian Law Reform Commission Journal Issue Devoted to Animal Law

The most recent issue of Reform, devoted to animals and the law, is now online. Reform is a publication of the Australian Law Reform Commission.

"At the Sydney meeting of the Australasian Law Reform Agencies Conference in April 2006, over 100 institutional law reformers from 32 law reform agencies in 25 Commonwealth countries endeavoured to identify the ‘over the horizon issues’ that would occupy them in the coming decades. These issues included: the environment and sustainability (especially global warming and water resources); the telecommunications revolution and the new media; changing demographics, such as the ageing population base in developed countries, and the worldwide scourge of HIV-AIDS; the challenges of ensuring national and international security without departing from human rights protections; and, finally, animal welfare and animal rights—described by speakers as perhaps 'the next great social justice movement'. "

"This issue of Reform is devoted to exploring the parameters of this emerging consciousness about the need to treat non-human animals with dignity and respect. Previous issues of Reform routinely feature a range of distinguished scholars, thinkers and practitioners. However, we are most deeply honoured to be able to open this issue with a piece from John M. Coetzee, Nobel Laureate in Literature and author of Lives of Animals (1999) and Elizabeth Costello (2003)."

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Resource Guide on Reliability of Fingerprint Evidence

The legal research website LLRX.com recently added a new resource guide on Fingerprint Evidence Challenges that presents material on the topic of the reliability of fingerprint evidence:

"Recent legal scholarship, forensic studies and Frye/Daubert hearings are adding to our understanding of the nature and limits of this commonly used identification method. The new picture that is emerging will impact the administration of justice and sound a tocsin as we move into the era of biometrics.

This article is a collection of select resources published on the web concerning the reliability and admissibility of fingerprint evidence. Links to guides, standards and related materials are listed to provide some background on the processes and application of this identification technique."

[Note: Frye/Daubert refers to U.S. federal court rules for the admissibility of expert scientific evidence ]

While the case law examples are taken from U.S. jurisprudence, the journal articles and forensic science sources cited are of interest to people outside the United States.

International Sports Law Guide (February 17, 2006): "Written by a librarian at Georgetown University, this new International Sports Law guide published on the GlobaLex website looks at key institutions governing international sports and provides information and links to federations governing individual sports at an international level, bodies associated with the Olympic Games and the Court of Arbitration for Sport."

New Internet Research Guide for Olympic Studies (April 2, 2008): "Intute, a British university consortium that offers free online service access to evaluated web resources for education and research, has just published a new subject booklet entitled 'Internet resources for Olympic studies'. The booklet describes resources relating to associations, the history of the Olympic Games, past and future Games, athletes, sports research, event management, and legal issues (arbitration of sports disputes, disability sports, gender equity and doping)."

Blog Coverage of Leg@l.IT Conference

Patrick Cormier did a good job of covering the recent Leg@l.IT Conference that took place Monday in Montreal. It is a major conference about the impacts of information technologies on the practice of law.

The document was compiled by 11 of the country's largest environmental organizations: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre, Greenpeace, Nature Canada, Pembina Institute, Pollution Probe, Sierra Club Canada and World Wildlife Fund.

The groups' recommendations centre on climate change, energy use, food production, toxic substances, water, forests and oceans. According to the report, Canada ranks near the bottom of all OECD countries on some two dozen environmental measurements.

The Citizen article takes a look at the difficulties that authorities face in trying to prevent terrorist acts and in gathering evidence that will stand up in court. The main difficulty arises when police swoop in to arrest suspects before they strike. Some accusations may well be premature or even unfounded.

This is in the context of the dropping of all charges against many of the members of the so-called "Toronto 18", a group of Moslem men from the Toronto area arrested in 2006 on suspicions of planning a series of terror attacks against government targets and officials.

However, criminal charges against 11 of the 18 are still proceeding. The trial has not yet started and much of the legal manoeuvres have happened under the cover of a publication ban. It is expected that the Crown will present evidence that members of the group allegedly wanted to purchase 3 tons of the type of fertilizer used to make huge car bombs.

The article does a good job of cutting through a lot of the recent hysteria surrounding the case: there have been observers who have commented that the case is "falling apart" and that Canada is showing that it will never be capable of tackling terrorism cases of any complexity. Others have taken the position that this is just an example of persecution against innocent individuals, more loud-mouthed than dangerous, and that there has never been a real threat of terrorism in Canada (despite the 1985 Air India bombing conspiracy organized in Canada that killed more than 300 people, most of them Canadians).

The main points raised by the article:

"Charges are routinely stayed in criminal cases, especially when inchoate crimes are alleged such as aiding and abetting ..., attempting to ... conspiracy to ... and the like. Most common are gang- and drug-related conspiracies."

"Several parties had a hand in raising expectations around the case. Following the June 2006 arrests, authorities held a major press conference (...) The lurid hype surrounding the case, including the storming of Parliament and beheading of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, came not from the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service or prosecutors but from unnamed media sources and defence lawyers."

"Homegrown terror cells, unlike professional terror groups with extensive tradecraft and experience, do not typically have the same operational discipline and well-defined boundaries, making it difficult to sort out the real players from the hangers-on and the bystanders."

"Police and CSIS relied on information from at least two informants who had infiltrated the group, which is often very difficult to judge and very difficult to corroborate..."

"A Federal Court judge, or judges, signed off on the 18 arrest warrants. The standard for arrest -- reasonable grounds to believe the person committed an offence -- is far lower than the standard for a successful prosecution."

"Sometimes, however, 'when the rubber hits the road and the Crown starts to present its case, it's not uncommon to start staying charges ... because you really don't have the horses for (all) of them,' says Mr. Paciocco. [David Paciocco, University of Ottawa law professor]. Regardless, however, 'when you're talking about depriving individuals of their liberty and you ultimately end up conceding that you don't have enough evidence to even run a credible case against them and you held them for a long period of time, that's a clear admission of failure. It's not a statement that the system is working'."

All federal library staff are welcome to attend. Please RSVP by Friday, April 25, 2008 to Carole Julien (carole.julien@lac-bac.gc.ca or 819-934-7427) if you plan to attend in person or by teleconference.

Special Case Management Challenges in U.S. Terrorism Cases

"Cases related to terrorism often pose unusual and challenging case-management issues for the courts. Evidence or arguments may be classified; witnesses or the jury may require special security measures; attorneys contacts with their clients may be diminished; other challenges may present themselves. "

"The purpose of this Federal Judicial Center resource is to assemble methods federal judges have employed to meet these challenges so that judges facing the challenges can learn from their colleagues experiences. "

"This Case Studies document includes background factual information about these high-profile cases as well as descriptions of the judges challenges and solutions. The challenges and solutions are summarized in a separate Problems and Solutions document. The information presented is based on a review of case files and news media accounts and on interviews with the judges."

The Center conducts education programs for the judicial branch of the American government.

Whispering Campaign Against Fair Use/Dealing in Copyright

"There is a counter-reformation movement afoot in the world of copyright. The purpose of the movement is to chill the willingness of countries to enact fair use or liberal fair dealing provisions designed to genuinely further innovation and creativity, rather than, as is currently the case, merely to give lip service to those concepts as the scope of copyright is expanded to were-rabbit size."

"The most contentious issue was the definition of 'public provocation'. The Commission proposes adding three new crimes aimed at covering 'traditional' and modern terrorist methods - recruiting terrorists, training for acts of terrorism and 'public provocation' to commit terrorist offences."

At the meeting, held in Brussels, the Director of Europol, Max-Peter Ratzel, said that in 2007 there were 583 failed, foiled or executed terrorist attacks, most connected to separatist groups in Spain and France. 1,044 people were arrested in Europe in connection with terrorism in 2007.

Europol is the European Union Police Office that works to encourage co-operation between law enforcement agencies in the Member States in preventing and combating terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and international organised crime.

Friday, April 18, 2008

The country's top constitutional law scholars and practitioners came together to offer analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada’s constitutional decisions in 2007.

Topics included:

The most significant 2007 Supreme Court of Canada constitutional decisions and their implications

The constitutionalization of collective bargaining and the B.C. Health Services case

Charkaoui, fundamental justice and national security

The constitutional dimensions of access to justice

In anticipation of today's conference, there were 2 interesting newspaper articles that looked at recent trends in the Supreme Court's rulings:

Top court takes more time on fewer decisions - Increasingly divided Supreme Court is being 'more pragmatic,' court analyst says (Globe and Mail, April 18, 2008): "The court has also embraced a fiscally cautious approach to just about every Charter of Rights case that could end up costing public money, according to an analysis by Patrick Monahan, dean of York University's Osgoode Hall Law School. 'Pragmatic is a good way of describing them,' Mr. Monahan said in an interview. 'They are looking at consequences' (...) The court turned away from creating complicated 'balancing tests' that lower-court judges must use to determine whether a law or procedure breaches the Charter. In their place, Mr. Monahan said, it is establishing more clearly-defined, 'categorical' rules that state the ingredients that will constitute a breach."

High court 'rebalancing' Charter views (Toronto Star, April 18, 2008): "With its judges more sharply divided and the majority often siding with police in 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada may be going through a transformation, one that could see it becoming more 'cautious' in Charter cases, says the author [Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School] of an annual report on the court's performance (...) In the 12 cases decided by the court in 2007 that involved the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, those claiming their Charter rights were breached were successful in just three cases.In five cases involving freedom of expression, it was a complete shutout for Charter claimants. In each of the five cases, claimants alleged that government or police had violated their right to freedom of expression. Every time, they lost."

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Wall-To-Wall Harry Potter Copyright Trial Coverage

J.K. Rowling, author of the übersuccessful Harry Potter book series, has been in a New York courtroom recently.

It is all part of a strange copyright infringement lawsuit against a librarian who wants to publish a Harry Potter "Lexicon" (in other words, a guide to Potterhead trivia).

Rowling claims that the lexicon copies big chunks of material from her series while adding little new information.

Hooboy.

Many dimensions to this one: copyright law, lowly librarian being attacked by Hollywood megacorporation (Warner Brothers), wildly popular kiddie author with gigantic following, artistic integrity, literary specialists as expert witnesses. And lots of tears for the cameras!

You gotta love it!

For those who can't get enough legal "Pottermania", the Wall Street Journal Law Blog provided full and interactive coverage and commentary of the story.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Free Access to Databases This Week (And Forever!)

Many commercial database vendors and aggregators are marking the occasion by providing temporary free access to many of their products.

For example:

Greenwood Publishing is providing free access to database products as diverse as Praeger Security International Online, Reader's Advisor Online and ARBAOnline (thousand of reviews of reference works). You have to register first.

Gale is allowing free access to a long list of popular and academic collections like Literature Criticism Online, Science Resource Center, Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America, and the Gale Virtual Reference Library (more than 1,700 e-books from major scientific and humanities publishers)

Now, here is an easy trick to have year-round free access to many high-quality database collections outside the legal field: get a local public library card.

New Library of Parliament Publication on Canadian Involvement in European Institutions

Canada is involved in more than a dozen European organizations, ranging from the Arctic Council to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe:

"Europe has the most extensive political architecture of any region in the world. After World War II, several international organizations (IOs) were set up to reduce long-standing tensions among European countries, facilitate economic reconstruction and development, improve cooperation in a broad range of policy areas, and ensure the security of European sub regions. Since the late 1980s, existing organizations have grown substantially in membership and scope, and additional ones have been created, while Soviet Bloc IOs have disappeared. This has occurred in a period of profound change, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, economic globalization, growing awareness of the increasingly global nature of environmental, economic, social and cultural issues, and an unprecedented growth in the number of democracies in the world (...) "

"This paper provides an overview of the sometimes confusing political architecture of Europe. To do so, it will briefly describe Europe’s major international organizations, including their parliamentary assemblies, and Canada’s involvement in them. The paper focuses on three types of IOs: organizations of European governance; transatlantic security organizations; and other, primarily European, organizations with non European membership."

"Canada asserts several claims over Arctic lands and waters. By and large, Canada’s claims and assertions are regarded as well-founded by other states. Canada can thus benefit from recognition of title and jurisdiction in relation to those claims. However, for some claims, other states have expressed opposition to Canada’s claims (...)"

"This paper focuses ... on controversial claims over Arctic waters that affect Canadian interests. Three controversies are examined, two of them ongoing and the last one potential: the status of the Northwest Passage; the maritime delimitation in the Beaufort Sea; and the extent to which claims over an extended continental shelf by the various Arctic states may generate future controversies."

Other recent Library of Parliament publications on issues of Arctic sovereignty include:

Canadian Arctic Sovereignty (26 January 2006): "The Arctic region has featured prominently in debates about Canadian sovereignty. There has been a renewed focus on the Arctic due to the effects of climate change in the region, notably the melting of the polar ice caps. At the same time, there are continuing strategic issues relating to potential incursions into Canadian Arctic territory at various levels – airspace, surface (terrestrial and maritime), and sub-surface (by nuclear submarines). Canada’s ability to detect and monitor such territorial incursions and to enforce sovereign claims over its Arctic territory in such cases has been questioned."

Canada's Legal Claims Over Arctic Territory and Waters (6 December, 2007): "The international legal principles and the type of power that states can claim in relation to land and waters differ. While states may claim sovereignty over land, generally their powers over adjacent waters and sea beds are described in terms of possession of rights and jurisdiction. Bordering waters are classified according to the law of the sea, with the extent of rights and jurisdiction of the coastal state varying according to the type of maritime zone involved. Consequently, this paper will deal first with legal principles and claims dealing with the territorial dimension of the Canadian Arctic – i.e., the mass of islands north of Canada’s landmass – before turning to the Arctic waters as such."

New Guide on International Environmental Legal Research

"International environmental law is an ever-changing, constantly expanding, and intriguing topic for international legal research. When decisions and collaborations occur between nations across international boundaries and treaties or agreements are made to cooperate for environmental concerns, disputes inevitably transpire because of trade implications for the respective nations, safety concerns and cleanliness of environmental resources among shared borders, or problems with enforcement mechanisms for liability under agreements or treaty provisions relating to the environment. The vastness of this area of international law includes the environmental sub-issues of population, biodiversity, global climate change, ozone depletion, preserving the Antarctic regions, movement of toxic and hazardous substances, land or vessel-based pollution, dumping, conservation of marine living resources, trans-boundary air and water pollution, desertification, and nuclear damage, among others. To begin research in international environmental law, a researcher should have a basic understanding of international law and authority: for example, knowledge of treaty research and an awareness of the types of international agreements and their effect in nations of the world as result of reservations, understandings, or declarations. As noted in this research guide, the number of international environmental treaties is manageable by sub-topic, so identification of the appropriate sub-topic or category of international environmental law is essential to narrowly tailor research and avoid getting bogged down in the wealth of information. Like many areas of international law, regulation and implementation of the treaty terms are at the national level. Thus, some knowledge and research of foreign laws in the countries of focus for a research problem is necessary for thorough research and analysis. This guide will provide an overview of the key terms, general starting points by sub-topic of international environmental law and correlating treaties and agreements, a summary of the essential websites and secondary sources for international environmental legal research, and an approach for researching the primary law of foreign jurisdictions for this topic. Finally, an overview of the prominent international organizations and correlating documentation produced for international environmental law and blogs for current awareness in this field will be provided for a comprehensive overview."

"The first use of this geospatial tool focuses on refugees and displaced people located in remote areas of Chad, Iraq, Colombia and Sudan's volatile Darfur region. Sit in front of your computer and, with a few clicks, see, hear and develop an emotional understanding of what it is like to be a refugee."

Sunday, April 13, 2008

McGill University Wiki on Global Health Issues

The McGill University Library in Montreal (my alma mater!) has created a Global Health Resource Guide using wiki software as a way of sharing resources.

The wiki is open to McGill community members and to others. Non-McGill members who want to contribute can contact the editorial committee that includes librarians specializing in law, government information, agriculture (Macdonald Campus) and life sciences.

Profiles of Courtroom Sketch Artists

"The general public sees their artwork on the news, online, and in print. These artists see the trials for us, and often their artwork is our only glimpse into the proceedings."

"I found myself wondering who these artists are. Is courtroom sketching a full time job? Are these people fine artists or commercial artists? And what kind of artwork do they do outside the courtroom? I decided to contact a range of courtroom sketch artists and see what I could find out."

[Source: the blog Canuckflack, a site that covers public relations, marketing, and government communications]

OK, so everyone says he is a brilliant jurist, one observer even saying that Bastarache is to judging what Wayne Gretzy is to Canadian hockey.

But few people know that the man, the former dean of law at the University of Moncton, is a strong believer in the role of law libraries.

He has sat on the Library Committee at the Supreme Court of Canada and is said to have taken an active interest in collection development issues, in particular, the balance between common and civil law materials.

New Brunswick: Mr. Justice Joseph Robertson of the Court of Appeal, an expert in administrative law

Newfoundland: Madam Justice Gale Welsh, of the Court of Appeal, whose appointment would not just give the province its first Supreme Court judge, but would lead to the Supreme Court for the first time having a majority of women; Mr. Justice Leo Barry, of the provincial Supreme Court (trial division), one of the few judges in the province appointed by a Conservative government. "

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Government May Consider Radical Reforms To Fix Broken Criminal Trial System

At a recent University of Ottawa conference, University of Toronto law professor Michael Code warned that "unprofessional conduct" by defence and Crown attorneys in large criminal cases has governments contemplating far-reaching reforms to make the trial process more efficient.

Code explained that some of the changes being debated behind the scenes include:

"(...) expanding the power of judges to vigorously manage the seemingly endless pretrial motions; restricting the timing, procedure and form of disclosure; expanding legal aid officials’ ability to oversee and restrain the legal aid budgets of long criminal trials, and restructuring the legal aid tariff to economically reward brevity and efficiency and deter inefficiency; and adding jury alternates to ensure that long, arduous trials don’t end in mistrials because jury members have dropped out."

Code, along with Patrick LeSage, the former chief justice of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, has been appointed by the Ontario government to lead a review of large and complex criminal case procedures (see the Library Boy post of February 25, 2008 entitled Ontario Launches Review of Complex Criminal Cases).

Also speaking at the University of Ottawa was Michael Moldaver, an Ontario Court of Appeal judge, who almost accused his fellow magistrates of having lost control:

"The Bench shares the blame to the extent that judges give up control of their courtrooms to the litigants, fail to bring a quick halt to frivolous motions, or fail to reign in counsel 'who go on endlessly,' said Justice Moldaver."

"He noted criminal trials 'are almost unrecognizable' from when he practiced 30 years ago. Murder cases that would have been tried in five to seven days, now take five to seven weeks, or months. By contrast he pointed to the recent U.S. trial and conviction of former press baron, Conrad Black. 'If this man had been charged in Canada... I guarantee you we would still be at the production stage here,' he observed."

2006 Annual Report of the Canada Firearms Centre

The Centre has been a service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since May 2006. Prior to that date, it had been a stand-alone agency. The transfer was intended by the government to bring about a more effective alignment of gun control measures with inter-agency law-enforcement efforts to combat gun crime.

Among the highlights for 2006:

as of December 31, 2006, there were 7,102,466 registered firearms in Canada;

approximately 176,000 individuals were subject to firearms-prohibition court orders;

the Canadian Firearms Registry Online, a database available to police agencies to respond to emergencies and to assist in investigations, received 6,432 queries per day in 2006, for a total of 2,347,680 firearms-related queries from police about things such as the serial number or registration certificate number of a firearm, or the name and address of an individual and the number and type of guns that person owned

"The ID Trail generated 177 student research assistant contracts including 119 for LL.B. students, 32 for LL.M. students, 17 for doctoral students, and another 9 for post-doctoral students. Five of these research assistants have obtained clerkships at the Supreme Court of Canada (...)"

"On the Identity Trail has also resulted in two books, three special issues of academic journals, 54 journal articles, 43 book chapters, 9 articles in trade/professional journals, 20 conference proceedings, 217 invited contributions/papers read, and 89 ID Trail blog pieces. Additionally, three major international conferences, 5 international workshops, and 5 pan-Canadian educational forums were organized, including a day-long workshop with researchers from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and other invited European scholars, as well as a second two-day workshop in Italy with researchers from Bologna and the Netherlands."

Access to Information Manual for Citizens (February 1, 2006): "A team of researchers from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic has released a Canadian Access to Information Manual for all 14 Canadian jurisdictions (federal, provincial and territorial) (...) The Manual is an initiative of 'On the Identity Trail', a multidisciplinary research project led by University of Ottawa law professor Ian Kerr and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's 'Initiatives on the New Economy' program."

Videos on "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" (May 28, 2007): "The ID Trail Project, which looks at issues about online privacy, has created 2 films relating to what is known as reasonable expectations of privacy (...) Among those interviewed are well-known Canadian lawyer Clayton Ruby, Andrew Clement of the University of Toronto, David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Pippa Lawson of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic."

CIHM (working for the past few years as Canadiana.org) is the creator of Early Canadiana Online, a digital library providing access to more than 2 and a half million pages of Canada's printed heritage from the time of the first European settlers up to the early 20th Century.

AlouetteCanada was launched by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries about 2 years ago and is an effort to digitize the collections of books and other documents held by Canadian academic research libraries.

According to the press release:

"Canadiana.org's Executive Director Magdalene Albert says, 'For 30 years, the former CIHM has been one of the leading services of its kind in the world. The expertise of its staff in researching, locating, cataloguing and digitizing Canada’s published heritage for preservation as well as discovery and use by Canadians is widely recognized'. New Co-Director Brian Bell states, 'The merger with AlouetteCanada brings with it the commitment to creating, disseminating, preserving and sustaining the Canadian memory knowledge base in digital form for the benefit of all Canadians'."

"Canadiana.org will act in concert with the Canadian Digital Information Strategy presently being developed by Library and Archives Canada."

Digitization of Early Canadian Government Documents Continues (November 21, 2005): "The non-profit organization Canadiana.org has just received another grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canadian Culture Online program to help it complete its Canada in the Making digitization project (...) Canadiana.org will be able to add a further 250,000 pages ... These will include selected Acts, Debates and Sessional papers from the Colonial period to Confederation, and from 1867 to 1900" [the description page for this project has moved]

CALL 2007 Pre-Conference: Managing Digital Collections (May 5, 2007): "The 2007 conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries begins this weekend in Ottawa and continues until Wednesday, May 9, 2007. Today, there was a pre-conference session on Creating and Managing a Digital Collection Project: From policy to technical requirements."

Preservation of Web-Based Government Documents in Canada (May 29, 2007): "The Canadian Association of Research Libraries recently released an April 2007 update of a report by Andrew Hubbertz entitled Collection and Preservation of Web-Based Provincial/Territorial Government Publications (...) The update provides a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction description of the current state of affairs relating to the collection and preservation of web-based government information in Canada."

Canadian Digital Information Strategy Issued for Comments (October 31, 2007): "Over the past 2 years, LAC [Library and Archives Canada] consulted with over 200 organizations: publishing and media producers, creators, rights bodies, academics, provincial and federal officials, and heritage institutions. The strategy being proposed is based on the following vision: 'Canada's digital information assets are created, managed and preserved to ensure that a significant Canadian digital presence and record is available to present and future generations, and that Canada's position in a global digital information economy is enhanced' (...) The draft strategy document highlights a number of current digitization projects in Canada and contains an extensive bibliography on international strategies, preservation, and digitization."

Responses to Draft Canadian Digital Information Strategy (February 16, 2008): "Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has issued the Canadian Digital Information Strategy in draft form for comment. Comments are due by Nov 23, 2007 (...) Responses from individuals and organizations have now been posted on the Library and Archives Canada website."

According to the report, entitled "The Olympics countdown – crackdown on activists threatens Olympics legacy":

"It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics, but actually because of the Olympics. Peaceful human rights activists, and others who have publicly criticised official government policy, have been targeted in the official pre-Olympics ‘clean up’, in an apparent attempt to portray a ‘stable’ or ‘harmonious’ image to the world by August 2008. Recent official assertions of a terrorist’ plot to attack the Olympic Games have given prominence to potential security threats to the Olympics, but a failure to back up such assertions with concrete evidence increases suspicions that the authorities are overstating such threats in an attempt to justify the current crackdown."

"Several peaceful activists, including those profiled in this series of reports, remain imprisoned or held under tight police surveillance. Despite some high profile releases, many more have been detained over the last six months for doing nothing more than petitioning the authorities to address their grievances or drawing international attention to ongoing human rights violations. Several of those detained have reportedly been subjected to beatings and other forms of torture or other ill-treatment. Those who have linked China’s human rights responsibilities to its hosting of the Olympics have been among the most harshly treated."

Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals Available For Free in April

"Each month, Ovid provides you with the opportunity to 'test drive' a sampling of our content, tools and services - FREE of charge - through our Resource of the Month program."

The Index is a multilingual bibliographic index to articles and book reviews from more than 500 legal journals published worldwide. Material covered is in languages such as English, French, Spanish and many others.

The British Columbia Law Institute has created a searchable law reform database that indexes over 7000 law reform materials from common law jurisdictions around the world

The WorldLII Law Reform Project "aims to make searchable from one location all of the databases specialising in Law Reform available on any of the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) that are part of WorldLII". The databases currently included are the law commissions of Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Papua New Guinea and England

The World Law Reform Collection Jurisdiction and Subject Index from Manas Media is an index to law reform commission publications searchable by keywords, jurisdiction and date. This collection contains references to thousands of titles from 37 jurisdictions indexed by 6 major categories and 61 subcategories. Full text of most titles published after 1999 is available in PDF format to subscribing libraries. Earlier titles are on microfiche

For historical background, Justice Canada's International Cooperation Group published a study on law reform agencies a few years ago. The study comes with an extensive bibliography.

"The Harper government's plans to reintroduce legislation that would make it easier for law-enforcement agencies to monitor Internet and wireless communications have been held up by a dispute with industry over who should cover the costs, according to documents obtained by Canwest News Service (...) "

"Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can already seek the authority to wiretap private communications through the Criminal Code, CSIS Act and other laws. But the laws were written before the emergence of the Internet, mobile phones and handheld computers, and in many cases the industry hasn't developed the technology to intercept such communications. (...)"

"Tensions between industry and law enforcement have become so strained that some municipal police forces have refused to pay claims for compensation submitted by telecom companies, and some of the cases have ended up in court."

"The Supreme Court last week dismissed an appeal by Telus Mobility, which wanted to be compensated for digging up call records as part of two 2004 criminal investigations in Ontario."

The "lawful access" law, as it is better known, would have effectively forced companies to build intercept capabilities into their networks.

"Amendments to the Criminal Code in 2004 introduced a new investigative tool for law enforcement agencies: a production order that would compel third parties to produce documents or data for use in criminal investigations. Two production orders required Telus to produce call data records. Telus applied for exemptions from the orders on the grounds that the burden of compliance would be unreasonable without compensation due to the cost of retrieving the archived data. The Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the application for exemptions. Telus appealed directly to the Supreme Court, pursuant to s. 40(1) of the Supreme Court Act, arguing that the broad wording in s. 487.012(4) of the Criminal Code permitting a judge to add terms and conditions, allowed for the inclusion of a condition of the production order directing payment of reasonable costs of compliance. "

"Held: The appeal should be dismissed."

The Osgoode Hall Law School blog The Court has 2 posts on the Tele‑Mobile case:

Thursday, April 03, 2008

World Book and Copyright Day April 23

April 23, 2008 is World Book and Copyright Day, a yearly event organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

According to UNESCO:

"23 April: a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo."

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

New Internet Research Guide for Olympic Studies

Intute, a British university consortium that offers free online service access to evaluated web resources for education and research, has just published a new subject booklet entitled Internet resources for Olympic studies.

From Lawyers' Wigs to Baseball Uniforms (March 9, 2006): "The Law Library Journal (American Association of Law Libraries) published 'Baseball and the Law: A Selected Annotated Bibliography, 1990–2004' in the spring of 2005."

World Cup 2006 in Germany - The Law on Doping in Sports (May 26, 2006): "The World Cup of Soccer, perhaps the world's greatest sporting extravaganza with the exception of the Summer Olympic Games, is taking place this June in Germany. And where there's international sports, there's the use of performance-enhancing drugs, or 'doping' (...) So what laws and regulations apply to sports and doping?"

New Law Library Journal Articles (September 6, 2006): "We have just received Law Library Journal vol. 98, no. 3 (Summer 2006) at the Supreme Court of Canada library. Among the articles that caught my attention: (...) Exploring the Court of Arbitration for Sport: 'The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), recognized as an emerging leader in international sports dispute resolution, was created specifically to address sports-related matters. Since its formation, the CAS has addressed a wide range of sports-related issues, including matters pertaining to the positive drug tests of athletes, the challenges to technical decisions of officials made during competition, and the eligibility of athletes to compete in the Olympic Games. Of significance, CAS awards have been recognized as developing a lex sportiva, that is, a set of guiding principles and rules in international sports law'. "

Cybercrime Legislation in Europe

The Council of Europe has published country profiles "prepared within the framework of the Council of Europe’s Project on Cybercrime in view of sharing information on cybercrime legislation and assessing the current state of implementation of the Convention on Cybercrime under national legislation. They do not necessarily reflect official positions of the countries covered or of the Council of Europe."

The Council of Europe is the continent's oldest political organization, founded in 1949. It groups together 47 countries, and it has granted observer status to five other countries (the Holy See, United States, Canada, Japan and Mexico). The Council of Europe is distinct from the European Union.

Disclaimer

Neither the content nor the views contained in this blog represent the positions of my employer or of any association to which I belong. Any links to a news article, an academic study or another blog post should not be considered to indicate any form of endorsement on my part or on that of my institution. This is a purely personal blog for the purposes of sharing information about library issues and legal research.